Kenneth Clarke interview

Kenneth Clarke is the Lazarus of politics. Each time his critics seek to
administer the last rites, he springs back to life. Demands that he be
despatched from office for being too soft on crime strike him as a minor
irritant. “I’ve had more torrid times,” he says.

The Justice Secretary says David Cameron and the Coalition should brace themselves for serious political 'difficulty' when the true impact of the austerity drive is realisedPhoto: CLARA MOLDEN

Most secretaries of state prefer to meet in their departmental offices, where sumptuous surroundings and good art denote high status. Mr Clarke opts for a cluttered room in the Commons adorned with a poster of Aix-les-Bains and a print of Winston Churchill. In a week that qualifies as torrid even by his relaxed standards, he defends what he sees as the legacy of Churchill, a founding father of the European Convention on Human Rights.

We meet on the eve of the historic debate on whether some British prisoners should have the right to vote. The House’s subsequent call, by 234 votes to 22, to uphold the blanket ban declared unlawful by the Strasbourg human rights court did not alter Mr Clarke’s belief that the court’s ruling must be observed.

“As Lord Chancellor, I do not contemplate either government or Parliament suddenly deciding it’s not bound by the rule of law… you can’t do it.” Parliament’s decision to do the undoable heralds an unprecedented crisis for the Government and for a Justice Secretary who was never an evangelist for convicts’ voting rights. It is, he says, “not an issue I would have raised”.

The author of his predicament is his Labour predecessor, Jack Straw, who teamed up with David Davis to put the rebel motion before MPs. “The trouble with Jack is that he’s an old-fashioned eurosceptic of the type who takes his own tea when he goes abroad,” Mr Clarke grumbles.

While Mr Clarke may not have anticipated the size of the rebellion, he has no wish to seem at odds with David Cameron, who is increasingly incandescent about the issue. “He’s obviously very annoyed. I’d rather the whole subject had not been raised. He’s more strong about it.”

Although he stresses there is no question of giving the vote to “murderers, rapists and terrorists”, nor does he foresee restricting the vote to those serving a year or less.

“The Austrian government has lost a case built on 12 months. So I can’t see why anyone thinks we will win.” Though no decision has been made, he favours a four-year upper limit. “The nearest [dividing line] between a serious and not-so-serious crime is four years. I think four years is pretty judge-proof.”

Speed, he says, is essential. “I don’t want the public to cotton on that prisoners are getting damages because of the inactivity of Parliament.”

Mr Clarke also warns against provoking a clash with Europe. “Some people are very angry [about prisoner voting], but we should be able to resolve that. The jurisdiction of the [European] court remains the fraught issue. I don’t see how we can say that we don’t obey courts if we don’t want to. It would be pretty startling if a British government introduced a motion or Bill which said: 'let’s break the law’.”

He does, however, suggest that he may be amenable to a different relationship with Strasbourg, saying that a commission “will look at whether we are applying it [the human rights convention] in the best way” and the possibility of an increased role for the Supreme Court.

Mr Clarke’s second major headache of the week was delivered on behalf of the Supreme Court by its president, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, who warned that the Ministry of Justice saw the court as “an outlying part of its empire” and complained that dependence on whatever funding the ministry ordained was “not a satisfactory situation”.

The Justice Secretary, a “fundamentalist” on judicial independence, was “astonished” by Lord Phillips’s outburst. “He’s never complained to me. We did have a difficult settlement. We did reduce his budget somewhat… I couldn’t possibly sit down with Lord Phillips and say: 'The Supreme Court is different. Just get your chief executive to tell me how much you want.’ ”

This rebuke goes further. “I’m sure he will be cautious. I’m sure Nicholas Phillips and I have an equal dislike about disagreeing in public about his budget.”

So was Lord Phillips wrong to speak out? “He was perfectly entitled to raise it, but he must expect me to reply. I don’t share his sense of grievance. When it comes to… hiring the ushers and cleaners and doing the paperwork, his judicial independence is not compromised by having to reach a settlement on pay and rations.”

As a former chancellor, he remains gloomy about the broader economic outlook, warning: “We’re in for a long haul to get back to normality.” While he, as a “deficit hawk”, backs George Osborne’s strategy, he sends a stark warning. “I don’t think Middle England has quite taken on board the scale of the problem. That will emerge as the cuts start coming home.”

Critics of the deficit reduction plans do not, he says, understand the difficulties inherited by the Coalition. “If someone says it’s not as bad as all that, I say [they] just don’t realise the calamitous position we’re in.”

On his own turf, he remains committed to his rehabilitation revolution. Asked if it is true that he hopes to close six prisons, he says: “I will certainly move to close more prisons. I’ve closed three now. Whether I can go further depends on what happens to crime. I slightly expect that some crimes will go up because of the recession.”

Mr Clarke is focusing on reducing reoffending and thus cutting record prisoner numbers. A manifesto promise to jail anyone found carrying a knife has, he confirms, been ditched. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, appeared to contradict that a few days ago when she said the Government was “absolutely clear” that anyone convicted of possessing a knife should expect to go to jail.

But Mr Clarke, while taking a grave view of knife crime, maintains that “automaticity is not government policy. We’ve never [jailed] everyone who’s been found with a knife. You’d send every fisherman in the country to prison.”

He also signals the release of many more prisoners held on indeterminate sentences. “We’ve got 6,000, and rising fast, and the parole board is so risk averse, it’s only letting 150 out. We have to rehabilitate [people] and only put on indeterminate sentence people who are a serious menace.”

On criticism of his legal aid cuts, he remains sanguine. “Oddly enough, I’m not in as much difficulty as I thought.”

The combative Mr Clarke has embraced his role with verve and resolve.

“It’s always hell’s-a-poppin’ in law and order,” he says. With a face-off with Europe now in prospect, the justice inferno may rapidly get a great deal hotter.